"And if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing."

Tag Archives: goals

Lately I find myself subconsciously searching for something more, I’m not entirely sure what, but can’t seem to find it anywhere. I look for it as I scroll through social media, at the bottom of my beer, at the end of a long Netflix binge (I’m such millennial), but I always feel the same. I’ve been trying to find an explanation for that feeling, a word to associate with it, something to blame it on.

Complacency. I’ve been hearing this word a lot lately and actually paying attention to it when it touches my eardrums. Unlike other words, it flutters in and stays there, resonating for reasons I can’t put my finger on. Like an itch you can’t scratch.

To be complacent means to feel unaware or uninformed self-satisfaction. My own personal definition of complacency is “ignorant contentment.” I love when people say that you aren’t growing as a person unless you’re outside of your comfort zone. I love even more when these growing pains are referred to as metaphoric stretch marks. You grow, you stretch, you learn, you adapt, you are forever changed because of it.

So I started really thinking about that word and realizing all the different aspects of my life I’ve slowly grown complacent about. My job, my weight, my city, everything has become so routine that I feel content for the most part. The problem is I can’t label that same contentment as happiness, or pride, or even satiation.

The problem with complacency is you can think about it and talk about it until you’re blue in the face, but unless you actually do something it isn’t going anywhere. It pulls up a chair and sits next to you and you both idly watch the world go by day in and day out. You stare out the same window and watch the same cars go by and think the same thoughts and have the same observations, until after a while you don’t see the window, or the cars, or observe new things, or conjure new thoughts. Life happens and you don’t even know it.

I wish I knew the secret to avoiding complacency altogether, but I guess that’s half the reason we’re here. We all live to know what our life’s purpose is and once we find it, we channel our hearts and souls into that purpose. It’s the waiting period that’s the hardest part, and it could last forever if you don’t force yourself into growing some more stretch marks.

It is both depressing and exciting that I have had this blog for two years. Mostly depressing, especially since only two posts ago did I talk about New Year’s resolutions, and it’s already that time again. I had some really great advice in that post, if I do say so myself.

I’d like to change the theme of this blog from being a “diet blog.” I hate that it took me until now to realize how lame that sounds. Who wants to read about someone else dieting? I know I don’t. I would much rather the focus of this blog be about my journey of bettering myself. Isn’t that something we can all relate to? I hope that anyone reading this is constantly trying to better themselves, which is also a forever commitment, just like the forever diet (gag).

In the spirit of New Years, yet again this year I said I’m not making any resolutions since my list is always the same. Yesterday I caved and I made a list of 2016 Goals, and ways to accomplish them. Here they are:

Love God.

Love my body.

Love my job.

Really, the first one should be the only one and the rest will follow. The more shit that happens to me the more I find myself leaning on God for support. I should lean on Him no matter what is going on in my life, good or bad, but the bad always pulls me closer to Him and I am thankful for that.

It upset me a little to read my New Years post from last year, as I had successfully forgotten about all the shitty things that happened to me in 2014, since 2015 was worse. You never know what the future will hold, and a lot of crazy things can be packed into one year’s time. But instead of dwelling on the negatives, I want to acknowledge all of the positive things that resulted from 2015. As I said in my post from last year, there’s no such thing as a “New Year New You,” we are all the result of an accumulation of events that affect us. And each event, no matter how shitty, always has some sort of positive side or outcome. If anything, they cause you to grow as a person in some way or another.

In 2015, although my car accident affected me in a number of ways, I ended up healthy and fine. Not being able to drink for a month was a nice detox, and opened my eyes to other problems I needed to address. In February, I went for my property management license, which led to a promotion in March and put me back at my old property that I had missed very much. A slow but gradual downward spiral led to the end of a two-year relationship in September, at which time I turned to my family and friends for support, gaining so much more happiness and fulfillment than I could have expected from those relationships and conversations.

Ironically this new independence; being single and not necessarily looking for a relationship, and also being financially independent, has made me realize just how far I feel from God. When you realize you have to stop relying on other people and situations to make you happy, you find yourself relying on something bigger. This past summer something said in a sermon hit me hard. At the time I was extremely unhappy and couldn’t put my finger on why. The pastor said, “YOU are not in control of your life… Where will you find refuge? Where will you go?” I was so used to turning to my boyfriend at the time, and I knew in my heart that wasn’t forever. I totally freaked, I started crying in church (so embarrassing), and the worst part was I couldn’t identify where the freak out was coming from. Eventually I realized that if I stripped away all the “things” that made up the facade of who I was…my clothes, my job, my friends, family, relationship, reputation… If all those things went away and I had no one left but myself, where would I find refuge? I had no idea, and that simple thought is terrifying.

I’m not afraid of being alone, but I do fear being without God. Empty, purposeless, wandering blindly. This year I will find my path back to God and my true self. That’s got to be the best New Year’s goal I’ve ever come up with.